Everyday Use Essay: Lost Heritage :: Everyday Use essays

Lost Heritage in Everyday hireBy contrasting the family characters in Everyday Use, baby-walker illustrates the mistake by some of placing thesignificance of inheritance solely in material objects. Walkerpresents Mama and Maggie, the younger daughter, as an examplethat heritage in some(prenominal) knowledge and form passes from onegeneration to another through a learning and experienceconnection. However, by a broken connection, Dee, the olderdaughter, represents a misconception of heritage as material.During Dees visit to Mama and Maggie, the contrast of thecharacters becomes a strife because Dee misplaces thesignificance of heritage in her desire for racial heritage. Mama and Maggie stand for the connection between generationsand the heritage that passed between them. Mama and Maggiecontinue to cost together in their humble home. Mama is a robust fair sex who does the needed upkeep of the land, I am a large, big-boned char with rough, man-working hands. In the winter, I wear overalls during the day. I can kill and divest a hog as mercilessly as a man. I can work outside all day, One winter I knocked a bull calf straight in the brain with a sledge hammer and had the meat hung up to chill before nightfall. (Walker 289)And Maggie is the daughter, unembellished and ashamed of the burn scarsdown her arms and legs, (Walker 288) who helps Mama by dothe yard so clean and wavy (Walker 288) and washes dishes inthe kitchen over the dishpan (Walker 293). incomplete Mama norMaggie are modernly educated persons I Mama never had aneducation myself. sometimes Maggie reads to me. She stumblesalong good-naturedly She knows she is not bright (Walker 290).However, by helping Mama, Maggie uses the hand-make items in herlife, experiences the life of her ancestors, and learns thehistory of both, exemplified by Maggies knowledge of the hand-made items and the people who made them--a knowledge which Deedoes not possess. Contrasting with Mama and Maggie, Dee seeks her heritag ewithout understanding the heritage itself. Unlike Mama who isrough and man-like, and Maggie who is shy and scared, Dee isconfident, where Hesitation is no spark off of her nature, (Walker289) and beautiful first glimpse of leg out of the car tells me it is Dee. Her feet were eternally neat-looking, as if God had shaped them Dee next. A dress down to the drop anchor Earrings gold, too (Walker 291)Also, Dee has a modern education, having been sent to a schoolin capital of Maine (Walker 290). Dee attempts to connect with her racialheritage by taking